Rehabilitation vs. Punishment
There is an important difference between successfully rehabilitating a person and "correcting" a person through punishment; the former allows him/her to be helped, the latter may offend him/her which might put a dent in their relationship. I don't think I have a good example particularly about rehabilitation and punishment in an organization, per se; but I can think of an event that happened to me during my last year of high school that was very memorable to me.
I went to an international school which had a very rigorous curriculum, the International Baccalaureate (IB). The final exams during our senior year were a culmination of the 2-year Diploma Programme (DP), as opposed to having final exams every semester like American high schools. For the last few months of our senior year, all of us were under tremendous stress because of the amount of content we needed to revise over the course of half a semester, as well as preparing for the SATs and college apps.
During that time, I picked up a very bad habit - smoking cigarettes. My high school was located in China, where laws about purchasing cigarettes and alcohol were not strictly enforced at all. Even though I was only seventeen years old, I could buy cigarettes anywhere without any identification. I thought to myself, if smoking cigarettes could help me destress like what people claim, I could start smoking during lunch so maybe I could feel better about the high amount of pressure I was under.
During the final exam period, I brought my cigarettes to school so that I could "destress" during breaks in between exams. I had this embroidered metal case which I put my cigarettes in for convenience. After a draining 3 hour math exam, I was going to take my exam schedule out of my purse; however, the cigarettes case was right next to the notebook that it fell out of my bag -- and it hit the ground and all the cigarettes fell out.
Conveniently, the upper school vice principal walked in with his secretary and saw the mess I had made. I tried my best to hide everything but it was futile - I was so scared that I might get expelled, especially during such an important time. I saw the vice principal walking towards me as it was obvious that I was the owner of those cigarettes on the ground. He calmly asked me to go to a common area which was next to the exam room, and sat me down. Before I could muster up any type of apology in attempt to save the situation, he calmly asked, "Carmen, how are your exams going? You must be stressed." I was shocked at how understanding and empathetic he was as he kept asking how I was doing and provided alternative ways to destress. After that, he sternly told me the negative consequences of smoking on my health, and told me that he had to meet with my parents. He emphasized that he wanted to see my parents not because he wanted to punish me, but rather to help me. It immediately made me realize that what I did was foolish and I used other healthier ways to destress instead.
If the vice principal had punished me for what I did, I would not have so easily accepted it -- I would had hated my school more and became more stressed. I deeply appreciated the vice principal's empathy and maturity on how he handled the situation. Likewise, in an organization, if a subordinate performs badly and his/her supervisor immediately yells at him/her instead of providing help and trying to understand the situation, the subordinate may not be rehabilitated successfully at all. I feel that it is important for the supervisor to be understanding and empathetic, so that the subordinate actually feels motivated to do better.
I went to an international school which had a very rigorous curriculum, the International Baccalaureate (IB). The final exams during our senior year were a culmination of the 2-year Diploma Programme (DP), as opposed to having final exams every semester like American high schools. For the last few months of our senior year, all of us were under tremendous stress because of the amount of content we needed to revise over the course of half a semester, as well as preparing for the SATs and college apps.
During that time, I picked up a very bad habit - smoking cigarettes. My high school was located in China, where laws about purchasing cigarettes and alcohol were not strictly enforced at all. Even though I was only seventeen years old, I could buy cigarettes anywhere without any identification. I thought to myself, if smoking cigarettes could help me destress like what people claim, I could start smoking during lunch so maybe I could feel better about the high amount of pressure I was under.
During the final exam period, I brought my cigarettes to school so that I could "destress" during breaks in between exams. I had this embroidered metal case which I put my cigarettes in for convenience. After a draining 3 hour math exam, I was going to take my exam schedule out of my purse; however, the cigarettes case was right next to the notebook that it fell out of my bag -- and it hit the ground and all the cigarettes fell out.
Conveniently, the upper school vice principal walked in with his secretary and saw the mess I had made. I tried my best to hide everything but it was futile - I was so scared that I might get expelled, especially during such an important time. I saw the vice principal walking towards me as it was obvious that I was the owner of those cigarettes on the ground. He calmly asked me to go to a common area which was next to the exam room, and sat me down. Before I could muster up any type of apology in attempt to save the situation, he calmly asked, "Carmen, how are your exams going? You must be stressed." I was shocked at how understanding and empathetic he was as he kept asking how I was doing and provided alternative ways to destress. After that, he sternly told me the negative consequences of smoking on my health, and told me that he had to meet with my parents. He emphasized that he wanted to see my parents not because he wanted to punish me, but rather to help me. It immediately made me realize that what I did was foolish and I used other healthier ways to destress instead.
If the vice principal had punished me for what I did, I would not have so easily accepted it -- I would had hated my school more and became more stressed. I deeply appreciated the vice principal's empathy and maturity on how he handled the situation. Likewise, in an organization, if a subordinate performs badly and his/her supervisor immediately yells at him/her instead of providing help and trying to understand the situation, the subordinate may not be rehabilitated successfully at all. I feel that it is important for the supervisor to be understanding and empathetic, so that the subordinate actually feels motivated to do better.
That's a touching story. Did you give up smoking after that incident?
ReplyDeleteI wonder how you performed on those exams and how your parents reacted to the whole story. If it was your parents who were paying the tuition, then in some sense they are the customers, not you. It's worth understanding the full picture here. Did anyone else (classmates perhaps) see this incident play out? If not, what was there to gain by giving you firmer discipline at that point?
Also, I expect that the vice principal was well aware that students were under stress during that period, not just you but everyone who was going through the same experience then. You may be unaware of this, but even the U of I sends out messages to instructors near final exams about students going through a high stress period. If there is prior conditioning on that front then the reaction is less of a surprise (to me). Evidently it was quite a surprise to you.
I wonder what you do now to destress. Perhaps it is a topic for the class to take up.
It is interesting to know that U of I sends out messages to instructors before final exams and that most schools probably do the same. I thought that our vice principle was just extremely empathetic towards students - maybe both.
DeleteI performed pretty well on those exams because I studied quite hard for them. My dad was more concerned than angry, and told me about my great uncle passing away due to lung cancer. I never smoked after that. Now , if I were alone, I destress with playing guitar and singing.